Here is No Penance, Much Less Innocence
by MlleClaudine
Summary: Second in my series of Cophine stories exploring their relationship in the moments and scenes that take place once the cameras stop rolling. Set somewhere in the short happy time between s01e08 and just before the shit hits the fan in s01e09. Feedback as always is greatly appreciated!


Catching the heavy door, I close it silently behind me. A few students glance up as I slip into a seat in the back row of the lecture hall, but most of the faces are alertly focused on the small energetic figure commanding the stage.

Cosima is a good teacher, I realize quickly, explaining concepts clearly and thoroughly at the undergraduate level without either oversimplifying or overburdening with detail. She answers questions readily, patiently giving each inquirer her full attention for the space of her reply and then gently but decisively heading off tangents to return to the main subject under discussion, which according to the notes on the whiteboard appears to be correlation of morphological diversity with levels of genetic variation within a population.

Letting the unique cadence of her voice tumble over me, I tune out her actual words and instead indulge myself in watching her. Her hands gesture gracefully in contrast to the choppy rhythm of her strides as she abstractedly paces the length and width of the stage. Sometimes she moves languorously, clearly organizing her thoughts on the fly; sometimes she stutter-steps quickly and jerkily, like a bird, her dreads dancing as she enthuses about a topic she can unpack in depth within the scope of the class. She's wearing a long cardigan in a fine sheer knit striped with shades of reds, browns and golds; when she turns, it billows like a cape, revealing beneath it a form-fitting lacy maroon top and slim finewale corduroy pants in a muted print of dusky violet that hug the shapely lines of her legs. Like much of her wardrobe that I've seen so far, it's a jumble of patterns and colors and textures that shouldn't work and yet somehow does, in a way that is inimitably hers.

Toward the end of the hour, she glances at her watch and wraps up her lecture, making a final point to a young woman who hangs on her every word. "Don't go around saying 'Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny,' dude. That's, like, decades out of date, and all the cool biogeneticists will gang up on you at the playground and take your lunch money." The students laugh, dissipating the electric hum of massed concentration that had permeated the hall. "Here endeth the lesson. Okay," she snaps her fingers, "announcements! Office hours are from 1-3:00 today; we're gonna focus on midterm review unless any of you needs help writing up your GoTaq PCR project. Dr. Hammill's out of town, so we'll meet in her office instead of down in the dungeon." An earnest young man who is sitting near the front raises his hand; his unfortunate complexion flushes scarlet as she points to him and gives him a thumbs up. "Thanks, Dave. The GCDC wanted me to let everyone know that they're going to be selling t-shirts with their sweet new design in the MCB lobby at noon on Friday. All right, guys, that's it — make good choices out there, get crazy with the science and I'll see you next week!"

There is a smattering of applause, then the usual post-class commotion of gathering bookbags and notebooks and computers, chatting with friends, checking text messages and so forth. A group of students clusters eagerly around Cosima, who looks for all the world like a mother duck surrounded by her babies. She catches sight of me and gives me a little finger wave, smiling radiantly. I smile and wave back.

Even without having read her student and supervisor evaluations, both from here and from Berkeley, I would have known just by watching her interact with her ducklings that she is a popular and well respected instructor. Her professor gives her a lot of latitude: unlike most 50%-appointment GTAs she has a virtually free hand in setting the syllabus of her course, designing the exams and lab exercises and doing almost all the lecturing. Cosima is the named coauthor of a study on neural crest development that Dr. Hammill is presenting as the plenary paper at the EED conference in Vienna this week. I am as inordinately proud of her as if I had been somehow personally responsible for her brilliance and relentless work ethic.

When most of the ducklings have finally started to wander off, I stroll down to the stage and reach for her hand. She brushes a chaste kiss over my cheek, but I tip up her chin so I can kiss her properly. I can feel a few of the stragglers watching, including Recapitulation Girl, who stares daggers at me, but I don't care.

I've surprised her, I can tell, but she returns the kiss warmly. "If you want, I could find some fence posts and trees for you to pee on," she murmurs against my lips.

"Very funny," I say, cupping her cheeks, caressing their softness with my thumbs. But I don't deny it: in the brief time that I have known her — and the even briefer time that I have known her intimately — I have already become possessive of her, have already come to think of her as mine.

Which is patently absurd, given my position and duties, I tell myself. And yet I can't help it. Craven addict indeed.

"Besides, it looks like you could use some help in fending off unwanted advances. Like the girl who asked you about Haeckel at the end?" I tease. "She seems to be very eager to get some more personal one on one instruction."

Cosima rolls her eyes in good humor. "Even if UMN didn't like _massively_ frown on faculty-student relationships, she wouldn't stand a chance. Not smart enough, not hot enough, not tall enough, not French enough."

"Flattery, my dear Ms. Niehaus," I kiss her again, "will get you everywhere."

"Noted." Running her fingers through my hair and brushing it away from my face, she smiles up at me. "Want to hang out with me before your class?"

Belatedly I remember that as part of my cover, I am supposedly TAing Molecular and Genetic Bases for Microbial Diseases. It's quite possible that she knows my purported schedule better than I do. "What did you have in mind?"

A slow lascivious grin curls across her mouth.

I raise an eyebrow. "I don't think we have time for that."

Eyes glinting behind her glasses, she gives me a thoroughly naughty smirk. She pulls me down to whisper in my ear. "Don't be so sure, Beraud. Bet you anything I can make you come in three minutes flat."

My mouth is suddenly dry, the moisture having fled to other parts of my body.

"Or we could just make out and talk for an hour. Come on," she says, letting me go and raising her voice to a more normal volume, "I've got access to my professor's digs for the rest of the week and I want to take full advantage of it." She wraps an arm around my waist, resting her hand at my hip and guiding me toward the exit at the rear of the stage. I loop my arm over her shoulders, drawing her close to me and enjoying the way we fit together as we walk.

There is an electronic lock with a touchpad on the door to the office. "I, um, kind of kept losing the key, so Dr. Hammill had this installed." Quickly she enters the code and gestures for me to go in.

It looks like every other university professor's office that I have ever seen. The walls are lined with shelves stuffed full of books, back issues of journals and stacks of yellowing papers; file cabinets bear notebooks and a large plastic box labeled VERY EXPENSIVE WALL DECORATIONS that contains a pile of matted but unframed diplomas. On a table by the window, a coffee maker of dubious cleanliness sits next to an electric kettle; a large ceramic mug proclaims that the professor is House Targaryen. A rather sad and dusty aspidistra huddles in a corner. It's unremarkable in every respect, but compared with the CBS' GTA communal office — the "dungeon" Cosima had mentioned to her students — its relative spaciousness and the privacy it affords are luxurious.

She settles behind the cluttered desk, motioning for me to sit in the leather tub chair next to it. It's surprisingly comfortable; I hook a leg over one low arm and sprawl into its curved back, propping my head on my elbow and smiling at her. "Are you hungry?" she asks.

"At 10:00 in the morning?"

"You are so French. Didn't have breakfast because I would have been late for class. Have to grade papers and prep next week's lectures, so if I don't eat now, I'll probably forget later and get hypoglycemic in lab and totally freak Scott out again." From a low shelf on the other side of the desk, she pulls out an insulated bag and arranges the contents to her satisfaction on the crowded desktop. There is a bag of baby carrots, a sliced cucumber, some hummus, a large handful of steamed edamame and a small plastic container that turns out to be full of M&Ms.

"Why are the M&Ms all green?" I can't help asking.

"Because the green ones are the best, everyone knows that," she says with complete seriousness, liberally sprinkling coarse grey sea salt from a tiny jar over the edamame. Reaching over, she pops one of the fuzzy pods into my mouth. I laugh, stripping out the beans with my teeth and licking salt from the corners of my lips. Her eyes narrow and she moves in. "You missed some here," _kiss_ "and here," _kiss_ "and, what's this?" _kiss_ "Tch. You are _such_ a messy girl."

This is hardly the time to point out that I cannot possibly have spilled anything in the place she is so assiduously searching.

Before long she is straddling me, kissing me breathless. Her hands wind into my hair; my hands slide under the hem of her shirt, seeking the warm silkiness of her back. Firm but yielding breasts press against my own, our nipples tight and hard, separated only by thin layers of cloth. The pressure of her center against mine, the heat and the rising scent of our arousal — it's almost unbearable.

When she moves to unfasten my belt and the buttons of my waistband and fly, I am unable to suppress a whimper. "Shhhhh," she says, kissing me again. "Can't make any noise. Sound carries like crazy in this place."

And then her glasses are skittering across the desk and she is kneeling on the floor before me. Encouraging me to slide forward so my ass is hanging off the edge of the chair, she pulls down my pants and underwear. I want so badly to kick them off, but that would mean taking the time to remove my boots and I just can't wait. Teasingly she trails a single finger through my already soaked curls, making me moan and spread my legs as far as the constricting garments around my ankles will allow. "Please," I whisper hoarsely, knowing she can see and feel and smell how much I want her, how much I need her.

She smiles as she presses gentle kisses to the sensitive insides of my thighs, my legs tensing at the soft brush of her dreads and the ephemeral wash of her breath over my skin. My hands tangle in the springy locks, only the last vestige of my self-control preventing me from tearing them out by the roots and crushing her face into me.

Slowly she circles her fingertips just inside my hungrily open entrance, making me growl with frustration at the maddening touch. "Impatient, are we?" she purrs, fingers caressing and sliding, tracing the contours of my sex.

"Cosima!" My back arches, thrusting and rolling my hips toward her shamelessly. This is what she does to me — she alone who makes me forget caution and ignore the voice that says _slow down, think, be careful_ , all the watchwords that have governed my entire disciplined life.

She dips her tongue into my achingly swollen folds, rubbing her chin, her nose, even her hair against me, painting us both with the hot wet flow from my clenching cunt and making me gasp and swear at each change in texture and pressure that simultaneously heightens my arousal and prevents me from settling into a rhythm. Already I am breathing raggedly, beginning to sweat through my camisole and tank top, shudders by now rippling continuously through my body. At last she relents, licking and sucking and lashing at my bursting clit until soon, much too soon, my head snaps back, teeth bared in a snarling rictus as every fiber of my being clenches in the throes of a shockingly savage release.

We're startled by a knock on the door; a very tall blurry silhouette is visible through the frosted glass pane. "Lauren?" a male voice asks. "Are you all right?"

"Shit!" Cosima sits back on her heels, wiping her face on her sleeve. Swiftly she scrambles to her feet and bends to kiss me. "Stay there, don't move."

As if I could. All my bones are jelly and my muscles are liquid.

She opens the door a crack — fortunately the angle of the opening and the position of my chair prevent our intruder's being able to see me — and smiles, looking up and squinting slightly at the person outside in the hallway. "Dr. Gilbert. Hi."

"Oh, hello, Cosima. I'd forgotten Lauren was away at a conference this week. I heard screaming and just wanted to make sure that she — that you were okay."

"Spider," she says brightly. "Little guy rappelled right into my tea."

"Ah. Well, I'm very glad that you don't need rescuing."

"Not at all. I like spiders, I just don't like sharing my drinks with them. Thanks for checking in on me, Dr. G." Politely but firmly she shuts the door, then leans against the frame, laughing quietly.

Her laughter is infectious; I find myself giggling with her. "What's so funny?"

"Oh, god, he's so sweet but he's like 800 years old and he has this major crush on my professor. I was just picturing him busting down the door and seeing us... well, seeing us."

Sauntering back over to where I am still gracelessly slumped in the chair, she kicks off her shoes — fabulously funky gray suede ankle boots with a Louis IV stacked heel — and does a bump-and-grind as she skins out of her pants. I bite my lower lip, eyes riveted by her impromptu strip show. She leaves on her shirt, which somehow makes her look even more wanton, and slings her leg over my thigh, threading one foot through the loop created by the pants still down around my ankles and leaning forward to brace her elbows on the arms of the chair. A flood of warmth slicks my skin, even as taut muscle presses against my center. Writhing and thrusting together with increasingly ravenous abandon, her mouth seeks to devour mine, a renewed frisson of desire reverberating up my spine as I realize that I still have not become inured to the thrill of tasting myself on her lips.

It isn't pretty, this frantic coupling, but neither of us is capable of tenderness or patience right now. The chair creaks and groans, jouncing over the hard linoleum floor, and I spare it a moment of worry that it might collapse beneath us. Roughly I rock my thigh upward as her movements quicken, harsh gasps in syncopated rhythm with mine, and then her teeth close over the joining of my neck and shoulder, biting down to muffle her cries until the vise grip of her legs slackens and she trembles to a meltingly pliant rest in my arms.

I hold her close, stroking the length of her back beneath the dampened material of her shirt, burning her curves and planes and textures into my sense memory. Our tongues slide together, twining, dancing as pulse and breath gradually slow to normal. With soft lips and the even softer tip of her tongue, Cosima soothes the marks of her teeth. "Sorry about that," she murmurs. "Got a little carried away."

"Shhh. It's okay." I press a kiss to the smooth skin of her temple, inhaling the scent of her hair, the scent of us that fills the room.

Her lips have found the sensitive spot at the base of my ear, making me shiver. "Shouldn't you be getting to class?"

 _What class?_ I very nearly say, then catch myself. "Unfortunately, yes."

"Funny, you're not moving."

"Some smartass girl seems to be holding me hostage."

"Oops." With a reluctant sigh, she hitches herself upright and helps me stand on unsteady legs.

I visit the attached bathroom, inspecting my reflection in the small metal mirror. Despite the lack of sleep and marathon bouts of mind-blowing sex over the past few days, my skin has never looked better, my eyes brighter. Apparently addiction agrees with me.

When I return, she's holding out my coat. I take it from her and kiss her deeply. She's dressed but still barefoot; the lizard part of my brain enjoys how tiny she is, how much I tower over her. "You'll be in the MicroBio lab after your office hours?"

"Yeah. Personal project I'm working on with Scott."

"Okay. I'll try to drop by before my Mic Path class in the afternoon. Oh! I found this little chocolatier in St. Paul that makes the most divine truffles. If I get out early enough, I'll pick up some for you tonight. Maybe a bottle of that Malbec you like, too."

"Mmm." She smiles, nipping at my lip. "They're not Eskimo Pies, but that sounds awesome."

"À bientôt, chérie"

"Later, dude."


End file.
